Monumental Late Works

Motherwell completes ten paintings, including Face of the Night (For Octavio Paz) and Blue Elegy.

Motherwell is awarded the Skowhegan Medal for Printmaking.

Motherwell begins Signs on a White Field, the first in a series of canvases in which he enlarges images from the Drunk with Turpentine series to a monumental scale and gives them titles derived from Joyce’s Ulysses. He exhibits a number of these works at the Knoedler gallery the following year.

A revised edition of H.H. Arnason’s 1977 monograph Robert Motherwell is published by Harry N. Abrams. The new volume includes an essay by Dore Ashton, an interview with Motherwell by Barbaralee Diamonstein, and poems by Rafael Alberti, Barbara Guest, and Octavio Paz.

In January, Motherwell’s daughter Jeannie gives birth to his only grandchild, Rebecca.

Motherwell receives the Gold Medal for the Visual Arts from the National Arts Club.

In the spring, Motherwell paints The Hollow Men, the first work in what becomes his major new series of the 1980s.

During the summer, Robert Motherwell: Tribute to James Joyce is presented at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum and includes works such as Riverrun.

Motherwell creates over twenty-five print editions during the year with Mosley and Tyler Graphics. His printmaking informs many of his collages, in which he introduces torn fragments from print proofs, while many of the prints are based on collages.

In the spring, Motherwell and Andrew Hoyem of Arion Press begin work on a livre d’artiste of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

During the summer, he creates a number of new works in the Hollow Men series.

In the fall, Abstract Expressionism: The Critical Developments, curated by Michael Auping, is presented at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. The exhibition includes five works by Motherwell.

The Museum of Modern Art presents Gifts of Works on Paper by Robert Motherwell, an exhibition of thirty-seven works donated to the museum by Motherwell. Among the works donated, which are drawn from all periods of his career are The Mexican Sketchbook, Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 1, and Crayon Je t’aime.

In December, Motherwell agrees to provide a large painting for the new corporate headquarters of General Electric in Fairfield, Connecticut.

L’Atelier de Robert Motherwell, a documentary for French television by Benoît Jacquot, is filmed in Greenwich for broadcast in 1989.

In the spring, Motherwell’s livre d’artiste of James Joyce’s Ulysses is published by Arion Press.

John Frohnmayer, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, withdraws a $10,000 grant to the New York gallery Artists Space because of controversy surrounding its exhibition Witnessing: Against Our Vanishing, a show of art about AIDS. On learning of the controversy, Motherwell privately donates $10,000 to Artists Space, to cover its loss of funding.

In November, President George H.W. Bush presents Motherwell with the National Medal of Arts in a ceremony at the White House. Other recipients include Alfred Eisenstaedt, Martin Friedman, Dizzy Gillespie, Czeslaw Milosz, and John Updike.

During the Spring, Motherwell completes his last major group of Elegy paintings, including Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 171 and Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 172 (with Blood).

During the spring, he has what will be his last exhibition at the Knoedler gallery, Robert Motherwell: From the Studio, which presents thirty-two new works done between 1958 and 1991, including his recent large-scale canvases, Improvisation, Mexican Past, Either/Or (for Kierkegaard), and Massive Image.